Lake Forest man gets $33 mil crash settlement

A Lake Forest man was awarded $33.2 million last week for injuries he suffered in a 2006 car crash caused by a drunken driver.

Waukegan attorney Patrick Salvi said George Baldwin, 22, was paralyzed from the chest down when a car driven by William Klairmont, then 18 and also of Lake Forest, struck a utility box on Route 43 in Lake Bluff on Nov. 19, 2006.

At the time of the crash, Klairmmont had a blood-alcohol level of 0.146 percent, well above the legal driving limit of 0.08 percent for adults.

In addition, Salvi said, the computer regulator in Klairmont's car showed he was driving 120 mph just seconds before the accident.

Salvi said the award will pay for Bladwin's past and future medical needs and will allow him to lead as full a life as possible.

The award, believed to be the largest in Lake County history, was announced March 4 in the courtroom of Circuit Judge Christopher Starck

Tournament winners

The mock trial team from Wheaton Academy came out on top of 15 other teams last weekend in the 6th annual Lake County Mock Trial Invitational.

Sponsored by the Lake County Law Related Education Initiative and the 19th Judicial Circuit, the tournament was attended by high schools from throughout northern Illinois.

Students were graded by practicing attorneys in areas including preparation, poise, composure and knowledge of facts as they portrayed attorneys and witnesses in an actual court case from the 1950s.

The team from Evanston High School placed second in the event, and last year's state champion, Highland Park High School, finished third.

Tax dodge

Investigators at the Lake County state's attorney's office are warning that the federal economic stimulus package only goes so far.

Making the cyber rounds these days is an all-so-official e-mail purporting to be from the Internal Revenue Service notifying the lucky recipient that he or she has a tax refund coming.

In one example sent this week, a man was told he has $869 ready to fall from the sky courtesy of Uncle Sam if he would only be so kind as to "click here" to access his refund.

To put it in official investigator language, har-de-har-har.

There is no refund, the e-mail did not come from the IRS and no one, under any circumstances, should follow the instruction to "click here" because it will only allow thieves to access information inside their computers.